Access Keys Skip to Menu Skip to Content Skip to Footer

2.0 Communication Skills

Information cannot be effectively received, transferred or exchanged without using good communication skills.

The skills you will be learning in this module are skills that can be used in your everyday communication with friends, family, colleagues and the families you work with. Good communication skills will enhance your relationships with other people as you determine accurately what they are saying, and they know they are being listened to.

When working with women good communication means that you respect the women's own thoughts, beliefs, and culture. Telling or advising her what you think she should do or pushing a woman towards a particular action is disrespectful.

Some health care workers may find this difficult as they have been trained to look for problems and fix them. However, once at home with her baby, the mother will benefit most from the information you shared and the confidence she gained from making her own decisions.

You can use communication skills to:

Good communication skills results in the person with whom you are having a conversation:

Lack of communication skills results in the person with whom you are having a conversation:

Workbook Activity 2.1

Complete Activity 2.1 in your workbook.

Practise makes perfect!

Communication skills are not something to be turned on and turned off at particular times. Develop your skills talking with your family and friends - practise them all the time.

Personal Qualities

You will need to develop a trusting relationship with the women, men and families you are assisting at this important stage of their life. Carl Rogers, a world-renowned psychotherapist, described three qualities essential to constructive communication: genuineness, non-possessive love and empathy. Communication skills, without the presence of these three factors, are associated with harmful therapist-client interactions.

Genuineness

The first of these is genuineness. Sometimes called congruence, it means being honest and open - what you really are without front or façade. The genuine person knows it is impossible to be completely self-revealing, but is committed to a responsible honesty and openness with others.

Non-possessive love

Also referred to in some texts as 'unconditional positive regard', but probably meaning more than this phrase allows. 'Non-possessive love' refers to your ability to accept, respect and support another person in a non-paternalistic way. This includes all of the client's frailties and weaknesses, as well as their strengths and positive qualities.

The 'love' you exhibit has the characteristics of patience, fairness, consistency, rationality and kindliness. It encourages freedom.

Empathy

Empathy refers to the ability to really see and hear another person and understand that person from their perspective. 'Putting yourself in their shoes.' Psychologists describe the Apathy-Empathy-Sympathy continuum.

Apathy Empathy Sympathy
"Yes, well mothers are constantly tired." "Broken nights can be very tiring." "I don't know how you cope with being woken so often."
"There's nothing wrong with breastmilk." "You're worried your breastmilk may be too thin." "It's so scary when all your baby has is your milk."

Apathy is a lack of feeling, while sympathy is 'feeling for' another person. Empathy is 'feeling with' the other person. Empathy involves experiencing the feelings of another without losing one's own identity. If you lose the ability to separate your own feelings from the feelings of another person, you are no longer empathetic.

Implementing Baby Friendly

For some, the implementation of Baby Friendly Initiative best-practice principles will involve change. The success of any change management strategy is dependent on effectively communicating the benefits of successful implementation as well as the details of the change. The communication skills you use will be the same whether it is explaining the benefits and details of the implementation to the administrators of your organisation, to your colleagues, to mothers or to community-based peer counsellors.

What should I remember?

  • the outcome when you use good communication skills; and the corollary when you don't
  • that communication skills are improved by practise
  • the difference between apathy, empathy and sympathy

Self-test quiz

Match an item from the column on the left with an item from the column on the right. Click on an item in one column, then on its matching response from the other column